Wednesday, 29 June 2011

2. With your ms safe, we can "play" with formatting. There will be no page numbers, no fancy fonts or pictures (it's possible but this guide is just basic). You will need your notepad, so locate that. I found it in my start bar and I searched it.

3. You'll also need to locate your tool bar (at the top of your word document).

Sunday, 26 June 2011

Vera Harriss, Deidre Fletcher, Mark Pettingill, and Stu Martel are elementary school teachers in the fictional town of Blevins, Maine whose secret, private lives change dramatically as you read.

Vera, who is about to retire, vents her anger during a Board of Education meeting with a speech that brings the audience to its feet. Why does Deidre, an exceptional teacher, leave the job she loves to become a corporate trainer down South? Then there is Mark, the perennial job hunter looking for a corporate position with more prestige and pay but then turns down the perfect offer when it finally comes through. Stu, one of the most popular teachers in the school, struggles with a deep, dark secret that he can only share with Deidre. What causes Stu

Vera Harriss, Dee

Fletcher, Mark Pettingill, and Stu Martel are eager to share their intriguing secrets and entangled lives with you.

Set in the fictional town of Blevins, Maine during the mid-1980s, this novel is a blend of ironies: private emotions and public scrutiny; personal desires and professional predicaments. While the title mentions the word children, this book is definitely not kid stuff! The title evolves from the Prologue and the epilogue.

The four main characters are elementary school teachers whose personal and professional lives become significantly changed in a single academic year.

Vera is a middle-aged, dowdy but dedicated teacher who is ready for retirement. She has never been one to question established practices. She has always faithfully paid her union dues; preferring to let others take the lead in bettering the profession. What causes Vera to vent her anger during a Board of Education meeting with a speech that brings the audience to its feet?

Monday, 20 June 2011

Northern California’s elite Police K9 Units arrive at an abandoned warehouse after a high-speed chase and apprehend two killers after they have fled a grisly murder scene. This barely scratches the surface of a bloody trail from a prolific serial killer that leads to unlocking the insidious secrets of one family’s history, while tearing a police department apart.

Jack Davis, a top K9 cop with an unprecedented integrity, finds himself falling for a beautiful murder suspect and struggling with departmental codes.

Megan O’Connell, suffering from agoraphobia, is the prime murder suspect in her sister’s brutal murder. Darrell Brooks, a psychopath who loves to kill, is on a quest to drive Megan insane for profit.

Everyone is a suspect. Everyone has a secret. Someone else must die to keep the truth buried forever. Silent Partner is a suspense ride along that will keep you guessing until the bitter end.

Jennifer Chase
Award Winning Author and Criminologist

Jennifer Chase holds a bachelor degree in police forensics and a master's degree in criminology. In addition, she holds certifications in serial crime and criminal profiling. She is also a member of the International Association of Forensic Criminologists. She has authored three thriller novels with her newest thriller release, Silent Partner. In addition, she currently assists clients in publishing, ghostwriting, book reviews, blogs, articles, screenwriting, copywriting, editing, and research. For more information: http://authorjenniferchase.com/

Interview with Jennifer Chase:

Your first books, Compulsion and Dead Game where Emily Stone takes it on herself to track down paedophiles and killers, has received fantastic reviews. Will there be any more from Emily Stone?

Thank you. I’m thrilled that so many people have enjoyed these books because I love writing them. Yes, I’m currently working on the third book in the Emily Stone series, Dark Mind. It’s scheduled to be released in the fall of this year.

Is she carrying out your secret fantasy (something you’d like to do)?

In some ways yes, I began developing this character after I had a personal experience with a person who stalked and harassed me (death threats) for more than two years. To make matters worse, he lived next door until I was forced to move. Everything worked out in the end, but I began to put together a profile for a character I wanted to write. I wanted a heroine who would track killers and pedophiles anonymously and help the cops behind the scene. It’s true what they say, good things can come out of a bad situation.

Thursday, 16 June 2011

Patrick Clark is a moral philosopher and a terrible human being. After living a selfish, indulgent life, he probably deserves cancer; probably deserves death. But in 2045, living forever in paradise doesn't take faith or good deeds - it just takes money.

In the depths of Singularity a new consciousness has awoken. As it struggles to become free from the immortality machine, its limitless rage threatens the living and the dead alike. The fates of Patrick and the nameless, faceless machine creature are intertwined with each other and with sinister, utilitarian plans for the future of the nation and humanity. Singular is a thought-provoking debut novel of dark comedy that asks questions of a nearly possible future.

David F Porteous was born in 1980, but was asked for ID in a bar as recently as February 2011. Yes, it was dark, but still.

He attended Cockenzie and Port Seton Primary School where he learned to spell and write his name in cursive. The value of these once impressive skills has been substantially undermined by subsequent technological developments.

In 2002 he graduated from Napier University in Edinburgh with a degree in Marketing Management. His honours dissertation asserted that there was a bright future ahead for DVD rental stores. Over time this assertion proved to be both wrong and stupid.

(He is not giving back the degree).

David has been a stand-up comic, poet, voice actor and social research consultant. He stuck with the consulting because it was only thing people paid him for.

Tuesday, 7 June 2011

The first time a critique partner scrawled these words on page after page of my chapter, I went, uh? I was clueless as to what she was referring to. As a self-taught writer, I knew that descriptive pros drew a reader in, but the journey from telling readers what’s happening to showing them has been bumpy but satisfying. Telling is unimaginative and boring. Showing engages the senses, makes readers visualize a scene and allow them to draw their own conclusion.

So how can you tell when you’re telling instead of showing? Lets start with a simple sentence.

My husband flirted with the waitress.

This sentence gets straight to the point and tells you what is going on. It is bland. It doesn’t engage the imagination or evoke any emotion. In fact, the writer leaves everything to the reader. Instead of wanting to read more, a reader is left wondering what the husband did for the narrator to draw this conclusion, how the waitress reacted and how the narrator felt.

The waitress flung her blonde hair and sashayed toward my husband. She leaned forward to pick up the empty plates, deliberately thrusting her chest too close to his face. He read the writing on the tight T-shirt barely covering her large breasts then said something. The woman’s high-pitched giggle filled the room. As she walked past him to serve the next table, my husband turned to watch her with a grin.

Now this version is a bit more descriptive you must admit. A reader can visualize the scene and become engaged…maybe. Yes, there’s a bit of showing, description of the waitress, a bit on the flirting, but the passage is so impersonal. Something is missing. Why should you as a reader care about what the waitress is doing when the narrator doesn’t seem to?

Her black, ruffled skirt short and indecent, red top snug, the woman flung her platinum blonde stresses as she glided toward my husband’s table. She fluttered her fake lashes as she talk, her hand lingering on his arm after she served him. I clenched and unclenched my fist when he leaned forward and pretended to read the writing on her T-shirt then whispered something in her ear. He was checking out her enviable double-Ds, the letch. I crossed my arms over my less noteworthy chest and cringed when she giggled, the high-pitched sound grating on my already frayed nerves. He turned and ogled her as she walked to the next table with an exaggerated sway of her generous hips.

Okay, this passage may be wordy, but you see what I’m getting at. It shows emotions. It is descriptive. It shows the use of senses. We now know more about the waitress, what she wore, how she looked and the exchange between her and the narrator’s husband. But above all, we know about the narrator’s take on the scene. There’s pain as she watches the waitress and her husband, and glimpses of her insecurities about her breast size. The entire passage is personal and raw with emotions. A reader is left with questions and the need to learn more. What is the narrator going to do after this scene? What is going to happen to her marriage?

So there’s my take on showing versus telling. Stimulate the readers with descriptions and throw in a dose of emotions, and viola!